The Sewanee Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble spook the community

The Sewanee Symphony Orchestra and the University Jazz Ensemble presented their second annual Halloween Concert on October 31, at Guerry Auditorium, which was free and open to the public. Since the concert was a Halloween concert, all the performers dressed up with costumes to present a very fun and relaxed concert. One of the conductors for the Jazz Ensemble, Prakash Wright, even dressed up as Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies, although he had to take his mask off in the middle of the performance because the mask was too hot and because he could not make eye contact with the performers.

The concert, which had two parts, was performed at 10:00 a.m. and at 7:30 p.m. At the morning concert, 500 elementary students from around the community were given a chance to listen to the concert as a part of a field trip. According to violinist Hayden Byrd (C’17), he was happy that he got to perform in front of elementary students because they “would ordinarily never have the opportunity to see a string orchestra perform.”

The Concert included a Halloween-themed selection of music including “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” “March to the Scaffold” by Berlioz, “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saens, and “Night on Bald Mountain” which was made famous by the Disney movie Fantasia, and more. According to Byrd, who had a solo in Danse Macabre, he prepared for the Orchestra Concert by “listen[ing] to recordings and advice that my private lesson professor gave me and tried to emulate that.”

One audience member, Rachel Head (C’16), enjoyed the Concert because “they played Night on Bald Mountain which is my favorite classical piece and because Dean Gatta’s solo part in the piece was great.”